Malli wrote:just wondering why you asked my location michelle? Did you have a follow up question to my answer?

Malli

Just curious because I'm not that far from the Canadian border. We could figure out a training day and get together and share ideas. But Canada is h-u-g-e so obviously that wouldn't work unless you were in Souther Ontario kinda near Niagara Falls.

Michelle

Inside me is a thin woman trying to get out. I usually shut the bitch up with a martini.

don't do your training on walks. it's not fair to the dog, IMO. if you haven't taught him to exhibit the proper behavior first in a distraction free environment, and then set up situations to correct him in where you have complete control of both the dog and the environment, you can't expect him to make the correct choice in a maximum impact scenario like a walk through the neighborhood - full of strangers and stray dogs etc.

i let my dogs be dogs on walks, and do my training completely seperately. now they both know a formal heel, and when i'm heading into an area where it will be useful, i give the command, and expect them to obey, and they do. but they only obey because i spent months teaching them exactly what 'heel' means under all circumstances before expecting them to execute it reliably on command.

often times people just want their dogs to 'walk nicely' and 'not pull towards distractions,' but that means nothing to the dog. if you're not telling them what you expect, they don't know what to do. they will of course react to a correction, but they won't think "oh, i shouldn't pull cause she won't want me to NOW" unless you specifically warn them what you want them to do, in advance of the situation. IE, you say "heel" before you enter the crowded sidewalk, NOT after they've lunged towards the stranger.

Nothing wrong with a prong, but your dog may not respond to one. I have a dog here who will pull on a prong collar hard enough to choke herself.

I just walk her on a harness, and let her pull her little brains out if that's what she wants to do. I can get her back under control with the "heel" command if I choose. But I'm just too lazy to spend the effort it would require to teach her to not pull when she's not on a formal heel.

The thing is that he does understand what he's supposed to do. As I mentioned earlier, I walk him alone and he behaves, there are few and far between instances where I need to correct. If I gave him a command, wouldn't it be the same deal? Because he is always expected not to pull on the leash? We already have an "informal heel" that is "right here" and he understands that, it means not to move from my side and no sniffing, I've tried that before and if the stimulus or distraction is enough he'll break that command also.

Malli wrote:when I had my dog on the GL face halter, he turned his head all crooked sideways and still pulled, he wore the hair off his nose where the straps were! Plus, I would really like something I can give a proper correction with, as we do training all the time and that is part of his training.

Malli

Yeah I'm talking about the chest harness, though. I like it way better than the head halter.

I also have an aversion to leash corrections, but that's just because I have a Greyhound and I've always been terrified that a leash correction would break his neck. I don't know much about that method of training at all.

Last edited by SisMorphine on March 12th, 2006, 1:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another." -Anatole France

pLaurent wrote:I think pulling is a pretty common problem with this breed.

I know I had a terrible pulling problem when I first got my Chloe.

and then he simply goes back to doing whatever and yanking my butt all over the place.

If he pulls and you follow him even one step, then he has won and figures that pulling works to get him where he wants to go.

Corrections don't help if you keep walking.

I can only tell you what worked for me, and that was to make a VERY abrupt and rapid and forceful"about face" and swiftly walk away every time my dog pulled. She did get a jar and a correction this way, but really didn't associate it with me, since when she was forced to turn and follow me, all I was doing was walking away - not yelling, or visibly correcting her.

For this I used a part chain Martingale collar. It did take a bit of time and many "about faces" but now I have a dog who does not pull!

Very good advice!! This is how my friend trained her old service dog how to behave on leash, I had totally forgotten about it.

"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another." -Anatole France

Well, you can try the prong, and it may work, but I just want to prepare you for the possibility that your dog may just be one of those that are hard to get through to. My bitch is like that, she just doesn't have much of a nervous system, so a correction doesn't mean very much to her.

So, we have the formal heel, in which she is actively working on the task and too busy to think about other things; or she's acting like a lawless hooligan. It is probably possible to teach her not to pull at any time, I'm just lazy.

If your dog has a command that he's not obeying under certain stimulus, you need to either work up to that stimulus gradually, or use corrections to make your point clear. But it needs to be a correction that gets through to the dog. If you try the same correction repeatedly without results, then it isn't working and you need something else.

It is easier to get a dog to ignore outside stimulus if the command it is obeying takes concentration. That is why my dog has a formal heel (taught almost entirely with positive methods), but still pulls on a leash. The act of not pulling is more vague, and doesn't take a lot of mental power from the dog, so it's easy to forget about it. I had that problem with stays too, until I taught my dogs to actively concentrate on staying.

You may need to teach the dog to concentrate on a different behavior under stimulus. Suzanne Clothier had a technique at the last of her seminars I went to called the "automatic check-in", in which the dog, when it encounters the stimulus which over-excites it, checks back in with the handler. She didn't need to use corrections to teach this, and it seemed very effective. Though I'm sure it takes a lot of serious effort to get permanent results.

ALL I can say is the Gentle Leader chest harness helps me when in a situation I feel I need better control. Like walking through the community with all the cool things going on. The gentle leader head halti I am not a fan of.

I've had the same problem with my dogs. They do wonderfully on lead (on prongs when on walks) when it's just us, but if we encountered any distractions (other dogs, people) they lost manners...it was pull pull sniff sniff screw you.

Two things:

1: When appropriate, teach dude to sit and stay until the distraction (be it person or dog) walks by. That was very easy to teach and enforce, even walking two dogs at a time. (This is of course assuming he already knows those commands, and you just have to re-introduce them in a different environment, in which case treat for doing it right, and correct for getting out of the stay).

2: Teach him to "focus." Both of my dogs are good about letting other dogs/people walk by them, but for some reason they CANNOT (or could not, I should say) walk by other dogs/people who were sitting still. Plus, having to sit every single time a person or dog crosses our path was getting old. Plus a few days ago, there was this terrier bastard yapping at my dogs behind his fence, and mine were being terrible so I yanked Molly good and hard...and she yelped...and I almost cried for hurting her. SO...I introduced a focus command...rather simple, common sense stuff really.

Bring lots and lots of high value treats, and introduce with no distractions. Let him notice that you have treats, say "focus" and bring the treat to your face, and reward when he looks up to you (he will just to follow the treat). Then...be sneaky and when he's not paying attention, say "focus" and reward right away as soon as he looks up at you. Once he connects "focus" with "look at mom," start trying it around distractions, working your way up from a minor distraction to bigger ones. Mine are still on minor distractions, but after just a week they are doing well. We can now walk past people and other dogs without any pulling or craziness, even dogs who are barking (but under control)...of course it's still a new command so they get like a meal's worth of treats....but it sure beats yanking your dog around.

We're not walking by that damned Terrier's yard for a while as he's what I would classify as a MAJOR FLUCKING distraction, but I think they're making good progress.

and if the water and vinegar gets inthe dogs eyes??? why does everyone feel the need to put vinegar in squirt bottles?? if you use a squirt bottle, use strictly water... if you miss, and get the dog in the eyes, that will burn like hell,,, use common sense. if it will hurt burn or do damage dont use it.. try squirting yourself in the eyes with water and vinegar...

I would never do anything to someone else's dog unless it were physically acosting us. I WAS joking. However if a dog was trying to attack me, my family or my dogs, I would dump a whole bottle of vinagar on them without feeling the least bit guilty.

Quite frankly my dogs act like a bit of water in a cup is battery acid, so adding anything is unnecessary!